BALLOT ISSUE THREATENS DRUG COURTS, TAFT WARNS

Expanding Eligibility For Treatment Option Likely Would Lessen Success Of
System

Apryl James, a cook at a restaurant in Mansfield, looked like any other
42-year-old grandmother appearing in public with Gov. Bob Taft would. She
was nervous.

Still, James' articulate presentation in the governor's office yesterday
masked a 30-year battle with drugs that ended when a drug-court judge sent
her to the Community Correctional Facility in Akron, where she was required
to take part in counseling by ex-addicts for six months.

Without what Judge James Henson of Richland County Common Pleas Drug Court
called a "last-ditch" effort to save her, James said she probably would not
be a sober and productive member of society.

"It gave me an opportunity to change my life, to take control of my life
that I would not have had anywhere else," she said.

A mother of three who twice ran away from drug-treatment programs and
finally was arrested for felony forgery in 1999, James embodies the success
of drug courts.

"Drug courts work," Taft said. "They are a key part of our strategies. We
need to stay the course."

The governor said the effectiveness of drug courts is threatened by the
Ohio Drug Treatment Initiative, a proposed ballot issue that would
substitute treatment for jail time for many drug-possession offenders.

The Ohio Campaign for New Drug Policies is seeking to put the issue on the
Nov. 5 statewide ballot. The petitioners have until Aug. 7 to submit
335,442 valid signatures to get the issue on the ballot. They are reported
to be closing in on the required number.

Taft said that if approved by Ohio voters, the proposal automatically would
give hardened criminals on drugs a right to treatment, and that the
treatment would be ineffective.

Henson agreed that incarceration is often the only way to get drug abusers
on the road to recovery.

"People don't want to change their habits," he said. "We send them to
prison to get their attention."

The governor said an evaluation by Ohio State University, the University of
Cincinnati and the Ohio Office of Criminal Justice Services showed that of
1,500 "graduates" of drug courts, fewer than one in three were arrested in
the next two years -- a decline of 19 percent compared with the control
group of 1,000 drug-using convicts who were not treated.

The governor's office declined to provide copies of the evaluation, saying
the final draft would not be ready until next week.

Edward J. Orlett, spokesman for the drug initiative, said he supports drug
courts and called the initiative a "logical expansion" of the system.

But he said under Taft's program, prosecutors and judges can select who
receives treatment and who receives jail time.

"This initiative makes every court in the state a drug court and provides
the funds for treatment," he said.

The proposed constitutional amendment would require the state to spend a
certain amount on drug treatment. Under current conditions, the amount
would be $38 million a year.